


I Close at the Open

by contextomy



Series: I Open at the Close [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contextomy/pseuds/contextomy
Summary: This is a sequel to "I Open at the Close."Severus Snape does not want Harry to travel back in time.Except for the canon epilogue, all dates are canon compliant.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Series: I Open at the Close [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123580
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

Time no longer had meaning for Snape. Minutes, hours, even days could have passed, and he would not have noticed. He stared at the familiar handwriting until the words blurred. His eyes were unfocused, and his mind could not fathom thoughts beyond the singular question that burned in his soul:

Why did Harry Potter travel back in time to get to him?

A coldness entered his chest, sobering him to the late night. His cheeks were dry, stained with dried tears that made his skin taut and uncomfortable. He was no longer crying. When had he stopped? Who was he even crying for? Harry, who craved warm nights in their bed where Knockturn Alley met Diagon Alley, who loved him so much he gave him the impossible gift of forgiveness and who he, in turn, murdered so callously? Or Potter, his idiot ingrate of student who jumped at every opportunity to give him lip? How were they one and the same?

Fawkes's cooing took him from this thoughts; Snape had forgotten she was here. His powers of observation and logic were returning to him as his eyes sharpened, and the words on the letters came to view.

There were too many questions with nowhere clear to start. He wondered if Potter were slumbering now or if he were up to his expected hijinks again. He had just succeeded in his recent mission of procuring Slughorn's old memories, so Snape presumed the latter.

Ah. Good. His cynicism was returning to him as well. He re-read the letter again. This time, he was able to read it with some coherence in his thoughts. The loopy handwriting still stung his chest. How many essays had he seen of Harry's when he had tutored him? In that moment, Snape recognized the irony that he had always been a mentor to the man in both his past and current life.

He held the paper gently, his eyes scanning the words as if deciphering a puzzle.

_I wonder -- do you think I look more handsome then or now?_

Then, Snape answered Harry mentally. If Snape could tell him, he would tell him that the most beautiful thing were his eyes. And it had been his eyes that drew him to Harry when they first met. It was common knowledge that eyes were the windows to the soul -- the weakest part of the membrane that separated body and soul. And in Harry, he'd seen something familiar.

It made sense now. He had been seeing his own history with Potter.

_I was meant to love you, to be loved by you, to have had the life I had with you. I still wish there was more I could have done. But I am proud of the little shop we built. I hope it remains even after I am gone._

No. Harry wasn't meant to do anything. No one should be doomed to such a fate. Not Potter, not Harry, not anyone.

Nothing of what they built remained. The shop burned down, Snape thought, hoping his silent words carried to where Harry rested like a prayer might to a god. Snape hadn't even thought to visit the place ever since the Death Eater raid.

No, he mentally corrected. It was not any raid. It had been an assassination.

_And because I know you, I hope you can forgive yourself too._

Harry may have known him, but it didn't change that he would never forgive himself. Dumbledore knew as much. How else had the old man so deftly maneuvered him to dedicating almost twenty years of his life to earn a forgiveness that Dumbledore himself was in no place to give him. The only people who could were dead. Lily was dead. Harry was dead. And Potter -- well, this Potter would never know what had transpired in his past.

However, if Potter traveled to the past to find him, it may very well be that he somehow found out about his past with Lily. Perhaps sometime in the future. Though it must not have been that much in the future. Potter didn't look too much older than he did now. How much can be accounted for by the Glamour, Snape didn't know.

_Trust in Dumbledore's plan so that I may see you again one day. I look forward to our years together more than life itself. Please want to see me too._

Except Snape didn't want to see him. He didn't want Potter to become Harry Green. He didn't want him to meet his younger self. He didn't want them to meet in his worst moments. How could Harry want to see him knowing what Severus will have done to him? How could he look forward to _this_? Snape had been nothing but deliberately terrible to Potter from the moment he laid eyes on him. How? _How_? He closed his eyes, letting the feeling of self-hatred pass through him. Such feelings were unproductive now. He was more concerned with preventing Potter from ever traveling back in time.

Potter was a Horcrux. Surely, there were ways to extricate that from him without killing him. But Dumbledore already had it in his head that the only way to ensure the Dark Lord's demise was to follow the prophecy, to allow the two of them to destroy one another.

Except Potter didn't die.

How?

Why was it always him?

As if Harry anticipated his questions, his words attempted to answer him.

_And because I know you so well, I know you'll wonder how this all could happen. And for that, I attach page 388 of Saul Croaker's textbook._

Saul Croaker. He had a place to start.

Snape sobered to what he needed to do next. Research and study came naturally to him. Whether he was ready to understand what Saul Croaker's research meant for his and Potter's fate, he was unsure. Nevertheless, he was able to erect his mental walls again, and he felt closer to his body -- no longer detached and untethered. He felt Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder, attempting to soothe him.

"Your plan will work," Snape said abruptly, his voice heavy and low even to his own ears.

"Plan?"

"To tell him that he has to die at the right moment. It will work."

"What makes you so certain?" Dumbledore asked, cautiously hopeful.

"Because he lived to come back to me."

Dumbledore looked at him, his expression inscrutable. Snape saw Legilimency at work behind his deceptively warm eyes; his own mental shields kept Dumbledore out. "We still have much work to do, Severus," he warned, wondering if he truly put so much faith in a letter to spell out their future. "Time magic is not a certain thing. It can--"

"I know what it is capable of being," Snape cut in, memories of Sirius's survival coming to his forefront for Dumbledore to glean. He carefully folded the paper, collected the page from Saul Croaker's book, and placed both back into the envelope.

"If you'll excuse me, Albus. I've work to do."


	2. Chapter 2

Snape feared he would have killed Dumbledore right where he stood in that room. He feared even more that he would have felt nothing for having done it.

He took a deep breath.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Focus. War would surely unravel in full force, but he could solve this. He could out-think his way out of this. He always had. He just needed more information.

With each step, his legs carried him closer to the library.

It didn't matter that his chest burned.

It didn't matter that his throat ached.

It didn't matter that he didn't understand how Albus could be so cruel to have subjected Harry Potter to a life destined for an early death.

He tightened his fingers into fists, and he heard stone crackle. Lines fractured into the stone wall to his left -- the first signs of accidental magic. He hadn't done that since he was a child. Snape paused and studied the crack, running his trembling fingers over the cold, rough stone. He knew what this meant. He could see it plainly, but, cruelly, he had no way to stop it.

His mind, his heart, and his magic were at war.

Snape wanted to curse the heavens and hells many times over for the fate of Harry Potter. 

_Draco_.

A line in his body pulled taut, aligning himself once more, and, like a puppet reanimated, Snape snapped to reality. His Unbreakable Vow anchored him to the present, and he blinked several times. It occurred to him that these promises, these lines that bound him, would tear him apart, but he quickly pushed the thought aside. Such thoughts were unproductive.

He turned and continued his trek to the library once more.

Saul Croaker. That was the only name that mattered. That was the name that could change fate.

 _Focus_.

"Accio Saul Croaker's Collection!" Snape bellowed with a wave of his wand, and two tomes came to him. One was a slim collection of theses from the Unspeakables, the other was Saul Croaker's 'A Theory of Time Travel.' 

* * *

Nothing made sense.

" _As our investigations currently stand, the longest period that may be relived without the possibility of serious harm to the traveller or to time itself is around five hours._ "  


Harry -- his Harry -- must have known this. He must have known he may not have come back. Why did he stay?

Grandfather's Paradox.

Bootstrap Paradox.

Causal Loop. 

Harry had access to this book, knew its contents, and still elected to dismiss the warnings and research of an Unspeakable? Why?

There seemed to have been infinite ways this all could have gone wrong. Harry could have mucked up Lily and James's relationship and led to them never giving birth to him at all. There was no possible way this Potter -- the idiot student in his class -- could possibly be Harry Green. Green was a Slytherin. Green knew how to accomplish things. They started a potions shop together. Green was more discerning.

There was a silver lining to it. It seemed Potter somehow managed to not kill them both from simply moving back in time.

He couldn't help the dark chuckle as he turned the page.

 _Parallel Universes._ Snape's eyes widened.

_Although undocumented in observations, it is not impossible for time travel to result in parallel universes -- ones that are incredibly similar or divergently different._

This was it.

_Traveling through time is akin to ripping through the fabric of nature and inserting oneself into a new realm entirely. The universe must accommodate your travel by mending itself. It is theorized that one such way of mending is by creating an entirely new version of itself. Not every replication is perfect, though most imperfections are unnoticeable._

An entirely new version of itself. An entire separate reality. A completely different Harry Potter.

Snape pinched the bridge of his brow and closed his eyes.

This was it.

This Potter was not his Harry. No, his Harry Green was from an entirely different reality, and he inserted himself into his own. He must have come from a reality where he had a better relationship with his potions master because Snape certainly had no interest in the Potter that attended his lectures with a slack-jawed expression.

* * *

Snape turned the dial of his projector, ending his lecture on the Inferi and switching over to the topic of their not-too-distant cousins.

"Why are we learning about Dementors?" Potter asked the moment the projector displays an image of Azkaban surrounded by Dementors.

Snape tapped the his lectern twice before finding the patience to form his answer.

"I mean, didn't we already fight them off?" Potter continued, cutting Snape off.

Insolent. Stupid. Prat.

This was most definitely not his Harry.

**Author's Note:**

> I finally drafted all the notes for the sequel!


End file.
